Posted 8 December 2025
Explore how Media Trust and NCVO helped charities move from AI overwhelm to AI confidence.
Artificial intelligence has become impossible to ignore, but for many charities, it still feels technical, intimidating, and out of reach. At the start of 2024, we heard a consistent message from our networks: We know AI could help. We just don’t know if we should be using it, and how to meaningfully get started.
Over the past year, Media Trust, Funded by CPI with support from the Google.org AI Opportunity Fund and in partnership with NCVO, set out to change that. Through four intensive AI Essentials Bootcamps, we trained 125 charities, giving teams the skills, confidence and strategic grounding they need to use AI meaningfully and with purpose.
This is the story of what we delivered, what charities gained, and what the sector needs next.
Across the sector, the same barriers kept showing up:
Only 31% of participants felt confident using AI for everyday tasks before the programme began. Many were dabbling with tools but didn’t know whether they were using them safely or effectively.
Just 16% felt familiar with AI tools. Most charities weren’t struggling with the why of AI, but the how, how to pick the right tool, how to avoid risks, how to use AI in a way that genuinely helps their charity.
Team members were experimenting alone, but organisations didn’t have a strategic approach. Encouragingly, 52% of our participants were senior leaders, demonstrating a clear appetite to bring AI understanding into the heart of charities.
The sector wasn’t lacking motivation, but it was lacking confidence.
Our 4 bootcamps included:
• 125 charities trained
• 24 workshops and masterclasses
• 54 hours of live learning
• 875 hours of eLearning
• 16 AI expert volunteers
This was capability-building at scale, but most importantly, with depth.
The results speak for themselves:
• Confidence in using AI tools rose from 31% to 85%
• Participant satisfaction averaged 4.8/5
• 100% said they would recommend the training
Charities didn’t just attend the bootcamp. They applied their learning, reshaped workflows and started to transform how their teams worked.
Without a doubt I now have a much clearer idea of how I and our team could use AI to improve our efficiency and also our communications and therefore our fundraising. The pace and length of course was just right, and the external support perfect.
Norma Corkish, Trustee, Hale Community & Youth Centre
One of the most powerful impacts has been how participants have shared learning beyond their immediate teams.
Confidence and interpretation of AI is no longer sitting with one person in the corner of a charity. Rather, it’s spreading the sector and showing promise for impactful and responsible use of AI.
Following on from the excellent training I received as part of cohort one, I trained my own team — and today I rolled that training out to over 60 county representatives from our nationwide Healthwatch network.
Fiona Dawson, Head of Operations, Healthwatch Nottingham
The demand for AI skills is enormous, and for many smaller charities, training like this is usually out of reach. We worked with NCVO to combine our audiences and reach, ensuring as many different small and medium sized charities as possible were able to access this training.
Through our partnership, we ensured that free, expert-led AI training reached grassroots organisations who might otherwise have been excluded.
The programme has shown first-hand what’s possible when two infrastructure organisations invest jointly in the sector’s digital capability.
Here’s how NCVO’s Head of Membership & Engagement, Hollie Banu, reflected on the collaboration:
Media Trust have been extraordinary partners to NCVO. What impressed us most was how intentionally the training was designed: inclusive, jargon-free and genuinely meeting participants where they were.
We are deeply grateful for Media Trust's commitment to strengthening the sector and levelling the playing field.
Hollie Banu, Head of Membership & Engagement at NCVO
We’re still at the beginning of the curve. From talking to charities across the bootcamps, we know that charities are experimenting with:
• Drafting newsletters
• Simplifying admin
• Improving fundraising communications
• Supporting impact measurement
• Streamlining volunteer management
But these are just first steps.
The next chapter is about using AI strategically, to redesign services, rethink workflows, and consider new forms of impact than aligns with charity’s values and ethics. But demand is growing fast, especially among smaller charities where time is tight and impact is everything.
We feel that the message from our bootcamps is clear: AI isn’t a distant, technical tool. With the right support, it becomes a practical, accessible way for charities to work smarter, reach more people, and free up precious time.
This programme showed what’s possible when charities are given the space, structure and confidence to learn. But it also showed something else: we need to keep going.
Charities want help engaging with AI safely, ethically and effectively. And we’re committed to continuing this work, with partners like NCVO, to ensure that no organisation is left behind as the sector moves into the next phase of digital transformation.
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